Principles vs Pragmatism

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Nick_A
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Re: Principles vs Pragmatism

Post by Nick_A »

Greta
As are true Scotsmen, but memory is notoriously unreliable. Why should I believe you when you claim to have a "true memory" that others don't have? Why are your memories more true than those of others? How did you come to be special?
You focus on me while I’m focusing on a philosophical question. Is anamnesis a reality and is priori knowledge a reality?

Anamneis is soul knowledge and can be remembered. A priori knowledge is “knowledge that is independent of all particular experiences, as opposed to a posteriori knowledge, which derives from experience”

As a secularist confined to one level of reality you must deny both anamnesis and a priori knowledge.. For them to exist there have to be levels of reality above Plato’s divided line and what the senses can experience. I may have had some experiences which opened my mind but that has nothing to do with the question if anamnesis and a priori are real
Intuition might be soul knowledge or it might be a general reflection of one's peccadilloes. There is no way of knowing. If I am making public policy, why should I choose you and your "soul knowledge" over Seeda Crystal and her "soul knowledge" or Marvin Gaya's soul knowledge or Mustafa's soul knowledge or the soul knowledge of Wun Mo Vu?
Quite true. More often than not legitimate experiences of intuition quickly turn into imagination and become corrupted. But the question is if it exists and can a person verity it in themselves through impartial efforts to know thyself; to have the conscious experience of themselves.

A creature cannot consciously see itself. If a person can have the experience of themselves it means that they are potentially more than a creature of blind reaction but can consciously witness what has become of their reactive animal nature. If so Plato is right and we have higher and lower parts of our collective soul and our fallen condition enables the higher to be governed by the lower instead of the lower being governed by the conscious higher
Indeed, and neither can philosophy cook the dinner. Science started to test truth claims. So many people believed that they were inspired by God but said different things. The only answer was to test. However, all of the claims were found to be lacking in basis of fact. Note that this is not about meaning - the how and not the why.
As I’ve said the philosophical truths and the revelations of the essence of religion become corrupted and serve only temporary pragmatic influences.

What is a seeker of truth to do when they realize the limitations of science and religion have created an unnatural situation in which they appear to be in opposition?

From an intellectual perspective a person can come to experience the two methods of thought described by Rodney Colin
In our attempt to reconcile the inner and outer world, however, we do come up against a very real difficulty, which must be faced. This difficulty is connected with the problem of reconciling different 'methods of knowing'.

Man has two ways of studying the universe. The first is by induction: he examines phenomena, classifies them, and attempts to infer laws and principles from them. This is the method generally used by science. The second is by deduction: having perceived or had revealed or discovered certain general laws and principles, he attempts to deduce the application of these laws in various studies and in life. This is the method generally used by religions.. The first method begins with 'facts' and attempts to reach 'laws'. The second method begins with 'laws' and attempts to reach 'facts'.

These two methods belong to the working of different human functions. The first is the method of the ordinary logical mind, which is permanently available to us. the second derives from a potential function in man, which is ordinarily inactive...
When a person experiences the third dimension of thought they experience an inner direction which attracts us to something greater than ourselves.

Imagine living in Flatland and your psychological awareness is confined to a plane of two dimensions. Our whole existence would take place in this two dimensional perspective.

Then for some reason you all of a sudden have the experience of this third dimension of thought which expands consciousness into a cube as opposed to merely a plane. There is a lower animal part of yourself reacting as all animals do in flatland but also has a conscious part which becomes aware that human life is more than two dimensional reactive animal life in flatland. If they are seekers of truth needing to experience objective human meaning and purpose they seek to understand this dimension new to them. The two dimensional world of science cannot measure the reality of the triune universe and the role consciousness has in it. The seeker of truth needs to open to the world of impartial contemplation in order to remember what has been forgotten

I know you don’t understand these people. My guess is that you’ve been hurt by religious corruption so deny yourself the ability to open to the third dimension of thought. As you know I’ve verified that this negative mindset is very influential in schools often making them institutions of spirit killing. I know people have been hurt but that cannot be an excuse for spreading their negative emotions leading to metaphysical repression.
Science provides the information so you can decide on these and other matters. Those who ignore that information are likely to waste a lot of time exploring philosophical cul-de-sacs.
But the point is that we cannot decide. As creatures of reaction and victims of acquired negative emotions, what is the objective value of what we decide? If a person’s goal is to become a tyrant there is no need for the experience of objective human meaning and purpose. Negative emotions must be fed and all that prevents it must be destroyed.
A seeker of truth who starts with a top down hypothesis and never questions it is not seeking truth but self justification. You have to question your own ideas, Nick, if you really want to get closer to truth. You have to - that's a non negotiable, immutable rule of human nature.
Read again that excerpt from Rodney Colin above. A seeker of truth and the experience of objective human meaning and purpose must pursue the question from both deductive and inductive efforts and verify both. Inductive reason will reveal facts and deductive reason will reveal universal purpose and human meaning within it. A true human being is one who has acquired a human perspective within which the facts of existence on earth are taking place.
I think we all have our own ideas about what is good and yours is not definitive. My idea of the good is if whatever is happening here on Earth manages to continue to story of evolution safely on other worlds. Otherwise, all moral gains are lost when the Earth's surface is rendered uninhabitable in the future.
Yes we all have our own ideas but what good are they if they are just the results of living in imagination? We end up with opposing imagination.

Do you define life in the jungle as good or bad? You may say it is neither but just the process of existence taking place. It is the same with societal life. It is neither good or bad but lacking consciousness it is just the cyclical process of existence serving universal needs. Some people begin to become aware that there is more going on than they had thought. Then Plato’s Cave allegory begins to make sense. They try to find others unafraid to rock the boat and learn how such ideas are hated. They are now in a difficult position and can easily go wrong. This is where the great ideas within the depths of philosophy and religion are vital. They have an awakening influence allowing a person to experience what they have come to realize is common knowledge but just hidden to preserve its purity.
I am assuming a moral progression along the way, because that's what's been observed in the course of human history. It's subtle but, for instance, most here would find the idea of public executions barbaric and physically repugnant. Once people would bring their kids along. I understand the impatience for moral progress, but it's like waiting for the Titanic to do a U-turn. Slow going.
We have more ingenious methods of killing to include both body and soul. Emotions are the same. Indoctrination changes but wears off. Negative emotions will always reign supreme for the Great Beast. Only individuals can see them for what they are and feel the benefit of outgrowing them.

Music is vibration. To understand the power and value of music you have to learn of the power of vibrations. This is a topic in itself but for those interested you can read a little on it here:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/kyb/kyb11.htm
"Nothing rests; everything moves; everything
vibrates."--The Kybalion.
The great Third Hermetic Principle--the Principle of Vibration--embodies the truth that Motion is manifest in everything in the Universe--that nothing is at rest--that everything moves, vibrates, and circles. This Hermetic Principle was recognized by some of the early Greek philosophers who embodied it in their systems. But, then, for centuries it was lost sight of by the thinkers outside of the Hermetic ranks. But in the Nineteenth Century physical science re-discovered the truth and the Twentieth Century scientific discoveries have added additional proof of the correctness and truth of this centuries-old Hermetic doctrine…………………………….
Interesting times ahead. However, these Great Beasts have the potential to be as much more sophisticated than us morally as we are more morally advanced than bacteria. I see it as just another fractal layer on complexifying reality.
What is morality? It is simply the reactive pragmatic devolution of the human attribute of objective conscience. Only conscience can evolve. Morality will always be limited to serving pragmatic and controlling influences. Experiencing objective conscience is unpleasant which is why it must be corrupted as soon as possible for the sake of self justification.
I'm just your using your ancient words. I would say that humanity is the future of humans. Humanity en masse is The Great Beast. It doesn't much suit me personally because I've always naturally been a renegade, even when trying to conform, but I can recognise what's going on. It's fine, just nature's continued march of which we have been part.
Yes the Great Beast empowered by AI may well be the future of reactive mindless humanity until its demise. I’m convinced that the future of humanity on earth as a quality of being serving a universal purpose will depend upon the minority needing and willing to be more than just an atom of the Great Beast and aspire to be human by psychologically connecting above and below: humanity with its source. I support this minority regardless of how the Great Beast must hate them to preserve its dominance..
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Greta
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Re: Principles vs Pragmatism

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 amAnamneis is soul knowledge and can be remembered. A priori knowledge is “knowledge that is independent of all particular experiences, as opposed to a posteriori knowledge, which derives from experience”

As a secularist confined to one level of reality you must deny both anamnesis and a priori knowledge.. For them to exist there have to be levels of reality above Plato’s divided line and what the senses can experience. I may have had some experiences which opened my mind but that has nothing to do with the question if anamnesis and a priori are real
I need not deny anything. I have no compulsions or needs in this area at all because I don't care enough about it. I just observe and wonder and generally try to make some sense of what's going on.

I think I tapped into a higher state of consciousness a couple of times and I do believe it was actually a deeper state than normal - accessing aspects of reality for which I had, and still have, no adequate words. In a way I loved it, and certainly enjoyed the much-needed insights it somehow brought me, but in another sense I didn't enjoy the intensity, or at least felt it was unsustainable that would lead to a brilliant and short life like a supernova.

So I personally prefer to make deformed rabbit shapes with the shadows on Plato's cave wall to being annihilated in the fire that casts the shadow. By the same token, I prefer being touched by the Sun at this distance than to get up close to it like the Parker Probe. If there's some fancy spiritual stuff I'm supposed to do in the future or in another life, then I suppose I'll do it then. If not, and reality turns out to be simpler than that, then I've saved some time. A reverse Pascal wager :)

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 am
Intuition might be soul knowledge or it might be a general reflection of one's peccadilloes. There is no way of knowing. If I am making public policy, why should I choose you and your "soul knowledge" over Seeda Crystal and her "soul knowledge" or Marvin Gaya's soul knowledge or Mustafa's soul knowledge or the soul knowledge of Wun Mo Vu?
Quite true. More often than not legitimate experiences of intuition quickly turn into imagination and become corrupted. But the question is if it exists and can a person verity it in themselves through impartial efforts to know thyself; to have the conscious experience of themselves.

A creature cannot consciously see itself. If a person can have the experience of themselves it means that they are potentially more than a creature of blind reaction but can consciously witness what has become of their reactive animal nature. If so Plato is right and we have higher and lower parts of our collective soul and our fallen condition enables the higher to be governed by the lower instead of the lower being governed by the conscious higher
Yup, I verified something in myself and one thing I learned is we humans are very, very, very far from fallen. Quite the contrary, we are powering along - or at least the minority whose descendants will transcend our animal nature. Unfortunately, rapid change and the development of superintelligent entities are lethal to many and inconvenient to most of us.

Your anger and resentment are no doubt exactly how other animals felt watching the unstoppable rise of humans, and understandable.

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 am
Indeed, and neither can philosophy cook the dinner. Science started to test truth claims. So many people believed that they were inspired by God but said different things. The only answer was to test. However, all of the claims were found to be lacking in basis of fact. Note that this is not about meaning - the how and not the why.
As I’ve said the philosophical truths and the revelations of the essence of religion become corrupted and serve only temporary pragmatic influences.

What is a seeker of truth to do when they realize the limitations of science and religion have created an unnatural situation in which they appear to be in opposition?
Theists will do what they have always done when pushed into minority - become terrorists. The little people will fight back against corporations and their pet governments, but it will be futile, like the Aboriginals and Native Americans fighting British colonists/invaders.

"I am right and everyone else is wrong" is an interesting position to have in life, and I think we would all recognise it. However, when we hold that position, the question we must ask ourselves is "What is everyone else seeing that I'm not seeing?".

xxxx wrote:In our attempt to reconcile the inner and outer world, however, we do come up against a very real difficulty, which must be faced. This difficulty is connected with the problem of reconciling different 'methods of knowing'.

Man has two ways of studying the universe. The first is by induction: he examines phenomena, classifies them, and attempts to infer laws and principles from them. This is the method generally used by science. The second is by deduction: having perceived or had revealed or discovered certain general laws and principles, he attempts to deduce the application of these laws in various studies and in life. This is the method generally used by religions.. The first method begins with 'facts' and attempts to reach 'laws'. The second method begins with 'laws' and attempts to reach 'facts'.

These two methods belong to the working of different human functions. The first is the method of the ordinary logical mind, which is permanently available to us. the second derives from a potential function in man, which is ordinarily inactive...
Alas, others's deductions may not be verifiable - and the world is replete with tricksters who will tell you any shit you want to hear for power and money. Look at all those evangelist preachers and the execrable nonsense they spew - that they deduced without accountability. Hurricane Katrina caused by gay people??

Accountability is the key here.
Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 amWhen a person experiences the third dimension of thought they experience an inner direction which attracts us to something greater than ourselves.

Imagine living in Flatland and your psychological awareness is confined to a plane of two dimensions. Our whole existence would take place in this two dimensional perspective.

Then for some reason you all of a sudden have the experience of this third dimension of thought which expands consciousness into a cube as opposed to merely a plane. There is a lower animal part of yourself reacting as all animals do in flatland but also has a conscious part which becomes aware that human life is more than two dimensional reactive animal life in flatland. If they are seekers of truth needing to experience objective human meaning and purpose they seek to understand this dimension new to them. The two dimensional world of science cannot measure the reality of the triune universe and the role consciousness has in it. The seeker of truth needs to open to the world of impartial contemplation in order to remember what has been forgotten
1. As stated, I have already blundered into the higher dimensions. Extraordinary. Enlightening. For everyday life, however, flat is nice. I like tamed nature more than supernature.

2. People can claim they have accessed the other dimensions and be wrong about it, or lying for gain. Where is the accountability?

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 amI know you don’t understand these people. My guess is that you’ve been hurt by religious corruption so deny yourself the ability to open to the third dimension of thought.
I guess not. I often don't even understand my family and friends, or the dog for that matter.

I think the whole of society has been wounded by religion overstaying its welcome. Religion no longer has legitimate aims - it's now just there "because". Religions have politically completely lost interest in social justice or mercy for the poor and underprivileged. Rather, the prosperity gospel sees wealth as a heavenly reward given on Earth for virtue and poverty as punishment for a person's character defects. Not nice, basically twisting the knife.

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 amAs you know I’ve verified that this negative mindset is very influential in schools often making them institutions of spirit killing. I know people have been hurt but that cannot be an excuse for spreading their negative emotions leading to metaphysical repression.
When it comes to metaphysical repression, you ain't seen nothin' yet, lad. Now that the US has ceded global leadership by alienating allies and strengthening competitors, that leaves China in control.

Schools aren't the place to teach metaphysics, not in pluralist societies where people are allowed different views. Christian teaching should not be imposed on the non-Christian in taxpayer funded schools.

Schools are now just workplace training facilities - an when China is in greater control, that trend will only continue. If you want religious instruction then you need to seek out a private school that does that. This is the case with all mainstream resources now - they have all been rationalised to the bare bones. Take music for example again. There's much great music out there but the mainstream that's most easily heard is noisy, ugly, one-dimensional, cynical and formulaic. The same could be said for television, or the news. If you want the good stuff you cannot be a passive consumer but actively choose your services.

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 am
Science provides the information so you can decide on these and other matters. Those who ignore that information are likely to waste a lot of time exploring philosophical cul-de-sacs.
But the point is that we cannot decide. As creatures of reaction and victims of acquired negative emotions, what is the objective value of what we decide? If a person’s goal is to become a tyrant there is no need for the experience of objective human meaning and purpose. Negative emotions must be fed and all that prevents it must be destroyed.
What we can do is make provisional decisions about what is. That is what science is - a collection of provisional observations. You can't expect science to act a religion or government and tell people what to do. That is not its brief. Science provides the information needed so that we may do what we will.

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 am
A seeker of truth who starts with a top down hypothesis and never questions it is not seeking truth but self justification. You have to question your own ideas, Nick, if you really want to get closer to truth. You have to - that's a non negotiable, immutable rule of human nature.
Read again that excerpt from Rodney Colin above. A seeker of truth and the experience of objective human meaning and purpose must pursue the question from both deductive and inductive efforts and verify both. Inductive reason will reveal facts and deductive reason will reveal universal purpose and human meaning within it. A true human being is one who has acquired a human perspective within which the facts of existence on earth are taking place.
Like I said, Nick, if you want to come closer to the truth you have to question your own ideas rather than defend them. You need to learn to become your harshest critic rather than biggest booster. That's how the dynamic works, I'm afraid. Life's a bit of a shit like that.

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 am
I think we all have our own ideas about what is good and yours is not definitive. My idea of the good is if whatever is happening here on Earth manages to continue to story of evolution safely on other worlds. Otherwise, all moral gains are lost when the Earth's surface is rendered uninhabitable in the future.
Yes we all have our own ideas but what good are they if they are just the results of living in imagination? We end up with opposing imagination.
The future is not imagination. Humans are what they are because they remember the past and envisage futures.

Look at the logical choices for humanity, given climate change now and the inevitable heating of the Sun in the longer term:

1. We go extinct. Game over.

2. The Apocalypse comes, scouring the Earth of the wicked and profane, leaving only the righteous (mostly Pentacostal evangelist Christians) to receive Jesus in the second coming and build a new world based on Godly values. Later, when the Sun heats up, they go extinct. Game over.

3. Ways and means are found to move either humans, their minds or propagative Earthly stuff in general to other worlds.

Any others?

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 amDo you define life in the jungle as good or bad? You may say it is neither but just the process of existence taking place.
Nope, I think it's tough, hence the widespread negativity bias. Why does bad news sell? Why does a car crash compel us to look? Because the worst things that can happen to you are worse than the best things are good. Thus, our negative nature evolved to match the overall negative quality of life.

Further, everyone lives by eating someone else. The only way to live is to kill other organisms, steal and kill their young and destroy their homes.

We are born screaming and unknowing. Then we go through "the journey" (good and bad) until decline, often with tortuous suffering until death claims you. A lot of this stuff needs to be transcended! Life desperately wants to transcend suffering with ever pore of its being.

I think this means transcending biology, to become digitised, synthetic (probably not any time soon). In the meantime, the best we can do is try to gain a philosophical perspective about the state of life and reality, and be grateful that the gazillion worse possible things that could be happening to you are not happening at this stage. I personally suspect that biology is a phase, just what happens after the rocks awaken but before suffering is transcended.

It seems that the early part of this path is difficult and painful, just as infancy and teen years are unsettled and tortuous - the path from insensate chemicals to whatever is the most advanced possible form of sentience. This universe is 13.8 billion years old and it has many billions left of star formation ahead, not to mention the trillion years that the longest lived stars will achieve.

I think that what may come of Earth's life, if we don't become extinct first (no guarantees) or life elsewhere will be far, far beyond our comprehension, just as human mentality is far beyond a microbe's comprehension. It's humbling.

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:08 am
I'm just your using your ancient words. I would say that humanity is the future of humans. Humanity en masse is The Great Beast. It doesn't much suit me personally because I've always naturally been a renegade, even when trying to conform, but I can recognise what's going on. It's fine, just nature's continued march of which we have been part.
Yes the Great Beast empowered by AI may well be the future of reactive mindless humanity until its demise. I’m convinced that the future of humanity on earth as a quality of being serving a universal purpose will depend upon the minority needing and willing to be more than just an atom of the Great Beast and aspire to be human by psychologically connecting above and below: humanity with its source. I support this minority regardless of how the Great Beast must hate them to preserve its dominance.
The "minority" you refer to will be the overwhelming majority. They will prove useful to the gated compounds of extreme wealth and technology that keep them out, just as other animals have long proved useful to us. Human resources, so to speak.
Nick_A
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Re: Principles vs Pragmatism

Post by Nick_A »

Greta
I need not deny anything. I have no compulsions or needs in this area at all because I don't care enough about it. I just observe and wonder and generally try to make some sense of what's going on.
OK. But why try to kill what is in those who do have this need for meaning like Simone Weil. It is what spirit killers have become dedicated to doing
…………………….I did not mind having no visible successes, but what did grieve me was the idea of being excluded from that transcendent kingdom to which only the truly great have access and wherein truth abides. I preferred to die rather than live without that truth……………
So I personally prefer to make deformed rabbit shapes with the shadows on Plato's cave wall to being annihilated in the fire that casts the shadow. By the same token, I prefer being touched by the Sun at this distance than to get up close to it like the Parker Probe. If there's some fancy spiritual stuff I'm supposed to do in the future or in another life, then I suppose I'll do it then. If not, and reality turns out to be simpler than that, then I've saved some time. A reverse Pascal wager


This is understandable since we are under the power of the human condition. If our lives are governed by imagination and the light of grace enables us to experience reality of what we are, the power of imagination will die in the light of grace. Since we believe we are our imagination it doesn’t want to die. A person without the spiritual motive will be inclined to avoid “being annihilated in the fire that casts the shadow.” You prefer pleasant illusions and believe they are you. Most are like this. Yet there is this minority willing to sacrifice the pleasantries for “the pearl of great price.” Of course they must be misunderstood and ridiculed by the majority if they become influential but that is part of cave life.
Yup, I verified something in myself and one thing I learned is we humans are very, very, very far from fallen. Quite the contrary, we are powering along - or at least the minority whose descendants will transcend our animal nature. Unfortunately, rapid change and the development of superintelligent entities are lethal to many and inconvenient to most of us.
The fallen condition is the term referring to Man living upside down. A normal human being would live right side up. A normal human would be governed by the conscious intellect. The emotions would serve consciousness and supply the force and the will necessary to do what is desired. The body would do the work in the world essential for the animal man to live. Fallen Man in contrast is ruled by bodily desires. Emotions serve to justify these desires and react when they are unsatisfied. The associative mind which governs fallen Man is concerned with justifying the contradictions between facts and values.

When a person is used to living upside down it is considered normal. If for some reason a person experiences what it is to live right side up they will know what they are losing by living upside down. They will realize that even though life in the world is absurd and meaningless, they will discover how to experience human meaning and purpose which is beyond the sense and above Plato’s divided line. I’m not alone in admitting the absurdity of the human condition and some actually make the conscious efforts in order to deal with it.
The absurdist philosopher Albert Camus stated that individuals should embrace the absurd condition of human existence while also defiantly continuing to explore and search for meaning.
Your anger and resentment are no doubt exactly how other animals felt watching the unstoppable rise of humans, and understandable.
This is just silly. There is nothing to be angry about or resentful of. The universe has an essential purpose. Man within the universe can either serve the same purpose as all reactive animal life on earth serves or Man can serve a conscious purpose. Who am I to be angry at and resentful of universal purpose and human meaning and purpose within it. Is it that surprising that there are some who can contemplate what the great philosophical ideas invite us to contemplate which include the dynamics of our universe and the potential for our being within it?
"I am right and everyone else is wrong" is an interesting position to have in life, and I think we would all recognise it. However, when we hold that position, the question we must ask ourselves is "What is everyone else seeing that I'm not seeing?".
Quite true. The communist and the scientologist will believe they are right. The communist believes that the ends justify the means since they are right. Try debating that and see how far you’ll get.
Alas, others's deductions may not be verifiable - and the world is replete with tricksters who will tell you any shit you want to hear for power and money. Look at all those evangelist preachers and the execrable nonsense they spew - that they deduced without accountability. Hurricane Katrina caused by gay people??

Accountability is the key here.
So the question becomes how to verify the human condition as it exists within us.. How do we separate the wheat from the tares not to please others but for the human need for meaning?

What does it mean to “know thyself” and how can a person become capable of it and do it?
I think the whole of society has been wounded by religion overstaying its welcome. Religion no longer has legitimate aims - it's now just there "because". Religions have politically completely lost interest in social justice or mercy for the poor and underprivileged. Rather, the prosperity gospel sees wealth as a heavenly reward given on Earth for virtue and poverty as punishment for a person's character defects. Not nice, basically twisting the knife.
Secularized religion and that which serves cave life is one thing and the essence of religion which serves to further Man’s conscious potential is another. Secularized religion is a result rather than a cause of societal problems. The problem is our blind acceptance of slavery to the human condition.
Schools aren't the place to teach metaphysics, not in pluralist societies where people are allowed different views. Christian teaching should not be imposed on the non-Christian in taxpayer funded schools.
Again, soul knowledge isn’t taught, it is remembered. It activates our conscience to experience what is normal for human being as opposed to the habits of cave life.

The essential first step is teaching how to develop conscious attention. Of course it would never happen since secular progressive indoctrination requires directed and captured attention. I was amazed to read how a grad student by the name Yoda of all things understood it perfectly and was inspired by Simone. He will never make it in progressive education but the fact that someone like him is aware means there must be others

https://philpapers.org/rec/YODSWO
Simone Weil on Attention and Education: Can Love Be Taught?

Kazuaki Yoda


Abstract

The concern of this study is the loss of the meaning or purpose of education and the instrumental view of education as its corollary. Today, education is largely conceived of as a means to gain social and economic privilege. The overemphasis on school children's test scores and the accountability of teachers and schools is evidence that education has lost its proper meaning. In such a climate, we observe general unhappiness among teachers, school children, and their parents. Society as a whole seems to have given up on education, not only school education but also the very idea of educated human beings. There is an urgent need to reconsider what education is and what its purpose is. However, these questions—once being the primary concerns of philosophers of education—are barely discussed today. I intend to energize the discourse of the aims of education by examining Simone Weil's thesis that the sole purpose of education is to nurture attention……………………………..
What we can do is make provisional decisions about what is. That is what science is - a collection of provisional observations. You can't expect science to act a religion or government and tell people what to do. That is not its brief. Science provides the information needed so that we may do what we will.
This is what we already do and it leads to the cyclical results described in Ecclesiastes 3. This is what we do. Some question why for example the lawful cycle of war and peace must repeat?
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Like I said, Nick, if you want to come closer to the truth you have to question your own ideas rather than defend them. You need to learn to become your harshest critic rather than biggest booster. That's how the dynamic works, I'm afraid. Life's a bit of a shit like that.
Agreed. I not only question but try to verify. I know these ideas are hated and why they must be hated but I cannot reject the great ideas just because people have been killed for asserting them. I know that cute blonde’s behind is attractive and valuable but I also know there are truths more hidden and more valuable. I can buy a cute blonde with cash but how do I pay for understanding?
The future is not imagination. Humans are what they are because they remember the past and envisage futures.
No, There are lawful reasons why there are no straight lines in nature. Natural laws are designed to create mechanical cycles. Everything repeats because of the mechanics of universal laws. It is what allows nature to serve its purpose. A person can acquire freedom from some laws by consciously falling under the influence of laws more favorable to Man’s being. It is what St. Paul meant in Romans 7 by the choice of being a slave to sin or a slave to God’s law. Your suggestion of choice is imagination.
I think this means transcending biology, to become digitised, synthetic (probably not any time soon). In the meantime, the best we can do is try to gain a philosophical perspective about the state of life and reality, and be grateful that the gazillion worse possible things that could be happening to you are not happening at this stage. I personally suspect that biology is a phase, just what happens after the rocks awaken but before suffering is transcended.


The most insulting philosophical question for the glory of Man: Is the potential evolutionary result for humanity to become the ultimate automatons serving our lower natures or conscious beings serving the universal purpose consciously connecting above and below?
It seems that the early part of this path is difficult and painful, just as infancy and teen years are unsettled and tortuous - the path from insensate chemicals to whatever is the most advanced possible form of sentience. This universe is 13.8 billion years old and it has many billions left of star formation ahead, not to mention the trillion years that the longest lived stars will achieve.

I think that what may come of Earth's life, if we don't become extinct first (no guarantees) or life elsewhere will be far, far beyond our comprehension, just as human mentality is far beyond a microbe's comprehension. It's humbling.
Quite true Earthly evolution has evolved into a complex flatland. Man has the potential for conscious life not restricted to the reactionary life on flatland. If our species will survive the span of time before a collective awakening to our conscious possibilities and obligations before we engage in the ritual of mutual self destruction is a great question.
Nick_A
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Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:23 am

Re: Principles vs Pragmatism

Post by Nick_A »

Consider what society as a whole would be like if its citizens were capable of balancing the necessity of the principles which sustain it with the exceptional circumstances which require pragmatic solutions? It is an ancient philosophical question; if you are capable of seeing the forest for the trees. What does it mean to know what the forest is and how its needs differ from those of individual trees. But what is the essence of trees? What is the essential quality that makes palm trees, oak trees, maple trees and all others trees? If we don’t know such things we really don’t know what a forest is and how the essence of its vegetation interacts with the essence of its animal life. We become caught up in the details of a tree while forgetting the wholeness of a forest and the principles requiring its survival.

Our being is like a forest and our animal consciousness changes its focus on parts which attract it. We don’t consciously experience the forest which is us since we are attached to the individual attractions of the external world. In short we lack the human perspective which would enable us to experience both the wholeness of the forest and the fragmentation into individuality. Both are true.

We know for example that a forest needs light to survive. We also know if vegetation blocks sunlight the trees will die. But trees don’t want to die. They demand their rights. Yet some trees have to die.

Nature has her way of solving this problem through fires for example. Trees die allowing light to enter and the forest regenerates. But we lack the intelligence of mother nature. We don’t know how to balance the needs of the forest (human being) with the desires of the trees (individuals demanding rights) so nature must solve the problem leading to unpleasant results. As a society matures and believes itself more intelligent it will produce more nasty alligators fighting for power. Only philosopher kings could deal with this problem and we don’t have them

“When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp’

Draining the swamp is a response to the necessities of remembering the principles keeping a healthy society alive. The alligators further the pragmatic demands taking advantage of what principles have enabled..

Can you distinguish between the wholeness and fragmentation of you own consciousness? If not how can a society be expected to do so? Only a small minority are willing and capable to impartially experience what is inside them; the relativity of their being and profit from the experience. But the alligators will win and society will lose as it must. It is nature’s way. Everything follows the cycles of existence. Only people with the need and courage to experience the human condition as it exists in them will inwardly profit from what is yet to come in ways we are yet to understand.
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